Free Talk Live Raided By FBI
At approximately 6:40am Eastern time, New Hampshire State Police, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Keene police department, and plain clothed agents of unknown law enforcement affiliation raided the Keene, New Hampshire home of Ian Freeman. Freeman is the host of the nationally syndicated radio show Free Talk Live, a libertarian oriented program broadcast on over 170 stations throughout the United States. I used to be a co-host of that show. Freeman’s home also served as the studio for the program, as well as the origin point of LRN.fm, a Shoutcast Internet radio station which broadcast FTL along with a 24/7 feed of other live programming and podcasts.
Free Talk Live Raided By FBI
I just returned from the studio after visiting with Ian. Apparently the raid was part of a child pornography investigation which has been ongoing for some time. Ian informs me the allegation prompting the raid was that some time back, a child pornography website was accessed from his Internet connection via the Tor network.
No doubt the timing coinciding with Freeman’s expulsion from the Free State Project Inc. is no mere coincidence. Ian was “uninvited” from FSP Inc. events just days earlier, after advocating for Kyle Tasker. Tasker is an elected member of the New Hampshire House of Representatives who was arrested on charges of drug possession and soliciting a minor for sex online.
The raid also comes as members of the pro-government “Stop Free Keene” group post misleading fliers about the town painting Ian as a pedophile and threat to the public.
Freeman has not been charged with any crime, but electronics were seized from the home including computers, hard drives, cell phones, and other electronic data storage mediums. Studio microphones were disconnected during the raid, and a radio repeater had its volume reduced to zero in an apparent attempt by law enforcement to avoid being recorded.
The duplex home is also the site of the former “Keene Activist Center” or “KAC” now known as the “Society of Love and Peace” or “SLAP”. The SLAP side of the duplex was left untouched, and the DVR for the surveillance system was on that side of the property. So surveillance footage of the raid will likely be made available in the near future.
If matters are as I have heard them to be, the raid has several troubling implications.
Firstly, from a technical perspective. Concerns about the security of the Tor network were raised in the wake of the trial of Ross Ulbricht, the creator of the Silk Road online drug market. It has been known for some time that an attack on the Tor network was at least theoretically possible, but this was thought to be time consuming and only useful for uncovering servers which were steadily connected to the network. Uncovering the identity of an individual who happens to be visiting a site at some point or another, is news at least to me.
Secondly, if the FBI had knowledge that child porn had been accessed from Freeman’s home (unconfirmed rumors are that the investigation has been ongoing for 12 months) why did they wait until today to conduct the raid? The raid almost certainly came as a result of the recent PR catastrophe with FSP Inc. If the FBI had been monitoring a particular child porn website, and leaving the people who accessed it alone, it does not speak well of their efforts to help children.
What is more likely is that the raid has political motives, and the FBI has ignored other people who accessed the site. They sat on information about child pornography, and used it at a politically opportune time against an anti-State media personality with international reach.
To clarify, I’m not co-signing Ian’s opinions on age of consent. In fact, I renounce them without hesitation. It’s a worthwhile debate to have, at least in terms of how or if the government should intervene, or how these things would work themselves out in a free society and I value that discussion. My research indicates that early sexualization of children has a profoundly negative impact on the life of the child, and when this is done on a societal level the results are catastrophic.
Sadly, the FBI seems more interested in confiscating communications equipment from broadcasters than actually stopping this societal degradation.
Despite the equipment confiscation, LRN.fm is back online, and Free Talk Live is expected to air live during their normally scheduled 7-10pm Eastern time slot.
Pete Eyre has a write up on the event at FreeKeene.com. Stay tuned to them for the latest.
Video taken from outside the scene of the raid is posted below.
This production is made possible by donors like you, you can also help by shopping through my Amazon, or other affiliate links. Without that support, this site will cease to exist.
Subscribe via email and never miss another post!
